Demonic black and white clown Art has become a cult horror icon and made his debut in 2008 short The 9th Circle. Despite clowns being designed as lighthearted figures of fun for small children and families, they can often inspire fear and unease. Filmmakers and novelists have been quick to capitalize on this, with one of Stephen King’s most popular villains being IT’s Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgård memorably brought Pennywise to life in live-action IT adaptations, while everything from Batman villain The Joker to 2014 creature feature Clown have used clowns as figures of terror.

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One of the most recent icons of the horror genre is Art the Clown, an evil black and white clown best known for the Terrifier movies. Art the Clown was created by filmmaker Damian Leone, while his unsettling design was inspired by a clown seen in The Twilight Zone episode “Five Characters In Search Of An Exit.” While Art is mute like other slasher characters like Halloween’s Michael Myers, he’s shown to take a great deal of delight in terrifying his victims before killing them.

Art the Clown has also been shown to be able to withstand a great deal of damage without dying. The black and white clown may have his own solo franchise, but he made his debut in The 9th Circle, which arrived in 2008. Surprisingly, Art the Clown’s role in the short is relatively small, but he’s easily the most memorable part. The 9th Circle opens with a young woman named Casey waiting on a train when Art sits across from her. Needless to say, she’s quickly creeped out by Art the Clown (who changed from movie to movie), but after tricking her with a gift, he injects her with a syringe and kidnaps her.

Art the Clown disappears from The 9th Circle following this opening, with Casey waking up underground and being tormented by a demonic cult. The second half of the short is still atmospheric, though some of the masks used for the demon characters don’t hold up nearly as well as Art’s stark black and white clown makeup. The 9th Circle later served as the first entry in the anthology All Hallow’s Eve, which also restores a previously deleted subplot where Casey meets other kidnap victims.

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All Hallow’s Eve’s second short makes Art the Clown the main star, with his growing stardom eventually leading to 2016’s Terrifier. It’s doubtful Leone or anyone else involved with The 9th Circle knew just how popular the black and white clown would become, but with a second Terrifier movie – with returning star David Howard Thornton – due for release in 2022, his cult is only more likely to grow.

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Padraig Cotter
(3499 Articles Published)

It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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